


Do I have your attention?

by apeirophobia



Category: The Following
Genre: Joe being Joe, M/M, Psychological Torture, Vicarious Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:30:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1510490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apeirophobia/pseuds/apeirophobia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan closes his eyes and sees Joe running his hands through Mike’s hair, remembers the way Joe met Ryan’s look of horror with a smile. Closes his eyes and sees Joe touching Sarah Fuller’s face, right before he painted her in red. Ryan hasn't slept properly in two days. (Mike Weston is missing, Ryan Hardy is distraught, and Joe Carroll has a message to send) </p><p>[Written for The Following Kink Meme]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt: Ryan/Mike (established) Joe/Mike (noncon/dubcon)
> 
> Ryan and Mike are together in a round about weird way, and Joe notices that Mike is just so pretty. And is all "I can hurt Ryan". So Joe rapes or has Mike raped, it's filmed and sent to Ryan. Run with it as far as you can.

Mike goes missing at 9:35:11 on a Wednesday night, give or take five seconds. His barefoot, gray knit shirt and plaid pajama pants-clad self is on one frame of the hotel's security footage and gone on the next. There are no glitches in the system or nearby exits. (Ryan knows what this means)   
  
He knows, has suspected for some time really, that the hotel's staff contains a Follower. Ryan now finds himself proved to be right in the worst way possible. It’s indicative of how fucked his own, and now Weston's, life has become that a potential mole isn't anywhere near his most pressing concern. No, Ryan's concerns lie much closer to home (and to the heart). His concern lies with the scuff marks on the door-frame of the hotel's emergency exit and with the blood on the edge of Mike's discarded work shirt (that wasn't there the last time Ryan saw him) and with the fact that the last time Ryan (or anyone) heard from Mike was in the form of a good-night text at 9:32, roughly three minutes before he was six yards down the hall, disappearing off the grainy stop-lapse feed.  
  
Previous to his disappearance Weston had been awake and working for nearly thirty-six consecutive hours, and Ryan knows that even Weston’s impressive reflexes would be impaired after the week they've had. Ryan knows that Joe knows it too. Previous to Mike's disappearance he and Ryan had been something-more-than-friends for thirty-six days. Ryan doesn't know if Carroll is trying to be clever or ironic in his timing of Mike’s abduction. Whichever it is, the message is the same and clear: _You tried to have something good in your life. You tried to have something without **my** permission_. Joe Carroll doesn't like it when people don’t follow his rules, especially Ryan Hardy.  
  
Previous to Mike’s disappearance Ryan was beginning to breathe again.  
  
Ryan Hardy is a fool. It was a foolish risk kissing Mike, an ill-advised act to _bed_ Mike and one that Ryan should probably regret, especially now, but he _doesn't_ and Ryan Hardy has always been handed the moniker of “good” but he has never claimed to be anything near perfect. Mike's mind is _intrigue_ and his body is _satisfaction_ and his smile is like a promise that’s too good to be true. Ryan should be a better person, a smarter person, but (then Mike _smiled_ at him and...) it can get a bit intoxicating, being looked at like your very existence is brilliant, so Ryan indulges when he should be honorable and only dwells on the fact that Mike is half his age when he’s feeling particularly self-loathing.  
  
Everything Ryan Hardy touches ends up broken, one way or another, ever since he met Joe Carroll. Mike Weston wasn't broken when Ryan Hardy met him. Ryan shouldn't have pressed his luck. He shouldn't have tempted Joe Carroll (Joe could never stand to leave a beautiful thing untouched). Joe could never stand to leave a precious piece of Ryan's life unsullied. Whether figuratively or literally, Joe has always been particularly good at stabbing Ryan in the heart.

 

* * *

 

 

The FBI decides to put out an APB (5'10", mid-twenties, Caucasian, blue eyes, last seen wearing sleep clothes, identifying scar on his forehead) though Ryan has a feeling that Mike won’t be found until Joe _wants_ him to be found. And it’s a terrifying thought (within a terrifying thought), that he’s actually beginning to understand Joe’s line of thinking so well. He doesn't want that level of intimate understanding. He doesn't want Joe in his head or his thoughts or his life (but he knows that Joe will always be there, entwined in his scar tissue and embedded in his mind, until he’s dead and perhaps even longer) and he certainly doesn't want him in _Mike’s_. Mike is…surprisingly innocent for someone who’s dedicated his life to catching criminals. Ryan loathes the idea of Joe being in close proximity to the kid (again), loathes it even more when he can do nothing but stare at a map that’s not giving him any answers and follow-up on dead-end witness reports. He closes his eyes and sees Joe running his hands through Mike’s hair, remembers the way Joe met Ryan’s look of horror with a smile. Closes his eyes and sees Joe touching Sarah Fuller’s face, right before he painted her in red.  
  
(Ryan hasn't slept properly in two days)  
  
There are things that Ryan knows, things that he wishes he didn't know, and things that he wishes weren't true. Joe is obsessed with death. Joe is obsessed with beauty. Joe is obsessed with Ryan. These are simply facts, nonnegotiable. As much as Ryan can detest Joe’s psychology he can not change it. Then there are things that Ryan can only admit to himself when he’s pushed to the edge, half-buzzed and alone in a too-quiet hotel room (there are things that Ryan can only admit to when Joe forces his hand).  
  
Ryan can admit that Mike is completely Joe’s type. Whether as a victim, or as a Follower, Joe has a type and Michael Emerson Weston fits that profile. Young, (impressionable) smart, (trusting) beautiful. He knows what that says about Joe. He doesn't know what that says about himself.  
  
Joe is obsessed with Ryan. Ryan despises Joe. Mike idolizes Ryan. (Ryan kissed Mike) If Mike was anyone else Ryan wouldn't trust him for a moment. He would have taken one look at his impassioned thesis and his too-blue eyes and would have written him off as an ideal, but poorly veiled, Follower. Too perfect. Too sweet, by far, for the FBI. And yet… if Ryan was anyone else he’d consider himself to be acting horribly inappropriate, unprofessional even. Falling for a kid during a multiple-murder investigation and old-enough-to-be-his-father and all that. Maybe Ryan doesn't want to know what that says about himself. Maybe there are some things he doesn't want to understand.  
  
(He's right.)  
  
The category of "things he wishes he didn't know" and the category of "things he wishes he didn't understand" intersect when he comes home to an unmarked DVD on his kitchen counter, sitting atop a pair of familiar sleep-worn flannel pants. And in that moment Ryan wants nothing more than for whatever is on that DVD to not exist. For whatever grandiose and dramatic message that Joe is attempting to communicate to him to simply be a bluff. He wants Mike to be found unharmed. He wants to not be responsible for an innocent's suffering.  
  
(but he wants to know that Mike is still alive more, so he watches the whole thing through)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the following prompt: Ryan/Mike (established) Joe/Mike (noncon/dubcon)
> 
> Ryan and Mike are together in a round about weird way, and Joe notices that Mike is just so pretty. And is all "I can hurt Ryan". So Joe rapes or has Mike raped, it's filmed and sent to Ryan. Run with it as far as you can.

 

Twenty minutes in and Ryan wants _needs_ to break something. Something, like his television screen, or Joe Carroll’s neck. The latter is preferable, but the former is closer. (Ryan prides himself on his self-restraint as his fingernails leave bloody half-moon indents on the palms of his hands)

  
It starts with Joe saying, “So good of you to join us, Ryan” and winking at the camera and then Mike is shirtless and bruised and… It starts with Mike laying on a king bed, face pale and one wrist swollen purple, his hair mused and his eyes' startled. It starts with Ryan biting his tongue and Joe smirking (and it gets so much worse).

  
  
There are no restraints on the kid, Mike, his goddamn boyfriend, and Ryan knows Joe well enough to know that is an ominous sign. It means Joe feels extremely confident in his ability to control the situation. It means Joe considers Mike to have no chance of escape, to have little chance of even fighting back. And he’s right. Mike is young and fit and, for the most part, can handle himself in violent altercations. But Mike is exhausted and compromised, if his wrist isn't broken then it’s the worst sprain that Ryan’s ever seen, and he looks so small next to Joe, _beneath_ Joe. Joe holds him down easily, pins his hips to the bed and presses his thumbs into the hollow of Mike’s throat steadily, _patiently_ , like he’s curious how long it will take Mike to gasp for air. How long before he arches his back and tries to twist away, lips turning blue as his useless hand pushes against Joe’s chest.

  
  
When Mike begins to go still Joe sits back suddenly, releasing the young FBI agent, and Ryan gasps. He didn't realize he was holding his own breath reflexively, waiting until Joe allowed him to breathe. He inhales slowly as Joe takes off his wool sweater and sheds his belt. Joe wraps the corded leather around Mike’s good wrist and secures it to the headboard. Mike, now stirring, pulls at the belt, testing it. His movements are sluggish and uneven, like his muscles are disagreeing with him, and he frowns when he realizes. He looks at Joe accusingly and then past him, to the camera, to Ryan, and gives the most desperate and beseeching look that Ryan feels his heart clench. For a moment Mike doesn't blink, doesn't breathe, he just stares off-camera. 

  
  
Joe breaks the spell with a slap and ‘tsks’ disapprovingly. It’s light, not meant to bruise, but Mike startles and bucks uncoordinatedly beneath Joe, all his muscles tense and unhelpful, and Ryan catches on as Mike’s eyes go slightly unfocused. ( _Drugs_ , Ryan thinks. Thinks, _Joe you fucking coward_.) 

  
  
“Stop looking at her,” Joe admonishes the boy beneath him. “She’s not going to help you,” he adds with a mock-kind shake of his head. Joe winks at whoever is holding the camera and Ryan hears an off-screen high-pitched giggle in response.

  
  
And then Joe’s attention is once more focused entirely on Mike. “Aren't you quite the pretty little FBI agent,” he musses, trailing one hand down his torso, fingers dancing across his ribs before tracing the scars along his sternum with interest. Mike squirms under the attention, his wounds from Roderick still sensitive. “Did Ryan kiss these all better?” Joe asks with a sneer before digging his fingertips in the seam the stitches left behind. Mike lets out a choked half-scream of pain and spasms, trapped by Joe’s weight and Joe’s hands. Joe’s gaze meets the camera and the look in his eyes is feral. Ryan knocks everything off his coffee table and covers his eyes, only to discover that they’re wet. He tries to swallow past the lump in his throat but he can’t turn it off. He can’t fail to bear witness to Mike’s suffering. Not when he’s already failed at everything else.

 

Mike self-consciously tries to hide his frightened reaction when Joe pulls at the tied strings of his pajama pants. Joe laughs at his bravado and jerks the pants further down his hips. In his living room Ryan bites his cheek until he tastes blood.

  
  
Through the screen Joe meets Ryan's gaze, grin lazy and satisfied as he says, “So much for keeping a professional distance, eh Ryan?”

 

“But...who can really blame you?” Joe concludes rhetorically, and wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, like he and Ryan are two friends sharing an inside joke. He laughs and tosses Mike’s pants off the bed, leaving him in only his boxers. Mike’s chest rises and falls sharply, his breath quickening in panic, but he meets Joe’s gaze when the older man leans down and ghosts his fingertips over the planes of Mike’s face, tracing the curve of Mike’s jaw with a thoughtful hum.

  
  
Mike stills, watching Joe study him, wary of what his next source of pain will be.

  
  
“When I heard that Ryan was seeking, uh, personal attachments, well, I just couldn't wait to get my hands on you.” Joe says finally, and he runs his teeth over freshly bruised skin before finding Mike’s mouth. He kisses brutally, all violence and no poetry, and weaves his fingers in Mike’s hair, holding him in place when he struggles.

  
  
“And you have not disappointed,” Joe says appraisingly. He nods approvingly at the camera as if to say ‘ _Way to go, Ryan_ ’ and Ryan grimaces, hating Joe ever more. After a moment Joe adds, thoughtfully, “though you could be less of a prude,” and Mike looks at him, disbelieving.

  
  
Joe wraps his hand around Mike’s broken wrist, gently at first and then harder until the swollen skin turns white. Joe’s face is nearly orgasmic as he watches Mike’s eyes roll back in his head, and Ryan’s stomach roils at the sight. When Mike’s mouth falls open in a silent scream Joe deepens the kiss. He kisses hard, all assured dominance and intimate familiarity. He kisses like he kills. He kisses like Ryan remembers.

  
  
Mike gags on the pain, curling his arm closer to himself, trying to protect his wrist. His eyes are glassy and wet but when Joe starts to slip his boxers off he has enough cognizance and fight left to take advantage of the opportunity the distraction provides. He twists his torso, butting the elbow of his restrained but uninjured arm firmly into Joe’s left eye.

  
  
Joe howls, an exclamation that is more rage than pain, and Ryan feels immensely proud. Mike pulls one leg free from under Joe and uses it push himself further up the bed, using the headboard to sit-up. Mike sways, face paling even more, and his drugged condition becomes blatantly obvious when he’s attempting to remain upright and move of his own volition. He shakes, the fingers of his good hand wrapped firmly around the headboard for stability, and pulls his knees to his chest, putting a barrier, no matter how temporary, between himself and the crazed serial killer.

 

 

The whole rebut only takes seconds but the affect it has is impressive. The camera shakes, the girl holding it hesitating between staying back, following her instructions, and intervening to help her god. Joe motions dismissively, telling her he can handle one “ _disobedient child_ ” without assistance, but he still holds a hand to his eye, grimacing, and Ryan thinks he sees red beneath his fingers. _Good_ , Ryan thinks, and he hopes it hurts like hell. Mike purses his lips, barely daring to breathe, and looks in the direction of the camera when the girl steps forward. The tear-stains on his cheeks catch the light and he looks so  _so_ young.

  
  
This time when Joe slaps him it’s less playful, and definitely meant to bruise. Mike’s skull thuds against the headboard when his head snaps back, and he groans, dazed. Joe finishes pulling off his boxers and starts to drag Mike back to lying flat on the bed. “You’re quite a handful,” Joe says with a wild grin, “no wonder Ryan likes you so much.”

  
  
Ryan feels his stomach sink at what he knows is coming next when Joe asks, “But we wouldn't want to keep him in suspense, would we?” and raises an eyebrow in questioning amusement, one eye bloodshot and garish, the other cold.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the following prompt: Ryan/Mike (established) Joe/Mike (noncon/dubcon)
> 
> Ryan and Mike are together in a round about weird way, and Joe notices that Mike is just so pretty. And is all "I can hurt Ryan". So Joe rapes or has Mike raped, it's filmed and sent to Ryan. Run with it as far as you can.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Mike asks, voice cracking as Joe’s knuckles leave welts on the backs of his thighs. It’s not a rational question. In that moment Mike Weston is not an FBI agent questioning a known killer, he’s just a kid who wants a reason for his own suffering. His face is turned away from the camera but Ryan can see the lines of his back, can see his shoulders shaking as he sobs.  
  
Joe makes a show of slowly prying Mike’s legs apart, “Why am I doing this?” he says, his mismatched eyes sweeping over Mike with a look that’s purely carnivorous, “because you caught my attention, Michael, and I’m not the sort of man to look and not touch.”  
  
Ryan takes a deep breath, or tries really, since it feels like an immense weight is keeping his lungs from working properly, and consciously uncurls his fingers from where they are threatening to crack his cell phone in two. He feels in a daze, like this can’t really be happening. Like Mike can’t really be being hurt right in front of him ( _was_  hurt, his brain supplies, but he refuses to truly understand what that means, that this has already happened, that there is absolutely nothing he can do, nothing he could have done), and Joe Carroll can’t really be touching, hurting, the person whose well-being means more to him than anything (can’t be the reason Mike is making sounds he should never be given cause to make).  
  
“Sto--” Mike says before cutting himself off. He closes his eyes with a wince and shakes his head.  
  
“What was that?” Joe asks, rolling his hips leisurely and nuzzling the back of Mike’s neck in a parody of intimacy, “You do recall what I told you would happen if you asked me to stop?”  
  
Joe emphasizes his threat by pulling Mike’s left leg up and thrusting deeper. “And what the price will be, if you deny me anything?”   
  
Mike makes a sound like he’s drowning and shakes his head. "No." he says quietly, his tears soaking the pillow case beneath his head.  
  
“No, you want me to stop, or ‘no’, you forgot what the consequences were?” Joe says, and despite his patronizing tone his voice comes out ragged. He ground his hips into Mike’s roughly, his movements fueled by lust and anger. As much as he liked to appear cool and in control of the situation it was clearly having an affect on him. Having Ryan Hardy’s heart at his mercy was the ultimate aphrodisiac. It was intoxicating, just knowing that every tear and gasp he could wring from the boy would be felt by his wrecked hero. It was almost more of a turn-on than the beautiful boy beneath him. Almost. (Joe might be mad but he isn't blind)  
  
To Joe the only thing better than porcelain skin and bright blue eyes was pale skin littered with bruises and once-bright eyes forever dimmed. To Joe, Mike Weston represented a wonderful combination of his favorite things in life: innocent and impressionable things he shouldn't put his hands on, and works of art that once broken would never be the same. (Joe might be writing Ryan’s story but Michael Emerson Weston is proving to be an unpredicted yet very satisfying addendum)  
  
“No, I meant--it was nothing,” Mike babbles, barely coherent, “I didn't mean anything…I didn't say anything.” He turns his face away, trying to ignore what Joe is doing to him. The teardrops that previously clung to Mike’s eyelashes run down his face when he closes his eyes.  
  
“Hey, hey, Mikey, Michael,” Joe says, faux-sweetly, pulling back on Mike’s hair and forcing the young agent’s head back, bearing his face to the camera once more, “If I didn't want to see those beautiful blues I would have given you a blindfold, alright gorgeous?” Joe’s grip is tight and Mike let’s out a muffled half-plea that sounds like Ryan’s name, but he opens his eyes. 

The utter misery in Mike’s eyes manages to break Ryan’s heart in a way that the knife and the magnets failed to. That same look of misery is what finally pushes Joe over the edge.  
  
“That’s a good boy,” Joe murmurs into Mike’s neck as he comes, his grip tightening painfully. He presses Mike further into the bed as he draws out his orgasm, contorting the younger man's body for his own pleasure.

 

* * *

  
  
“Why are you still crying?” Joe asks curiously as he reclines back some moments later, taking some of his weight off of Mike and untangling their legs, “Ryan is still alive and unharmed, just as I said he would be. You’re still in one piece, more or less, and I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to have you returned to him,” he leans over Mike’s shaking form and cards long fingers through reddish blond hair, petting Mike idly, “I guess you’re lucky that Ryan seems to have a taste for my left-overs.” Joe says with a rueful smile.  
  
Mike just cries harder in response to Joe’s condolences, his tears bordering on hysteria. _Seriously?_  Ryan thinks as he watches Joe watch Mike curiously, _he was still tormenting the kid?_ Ryan knew, probably better than anyone else on the planet, the kind of horrors that Joe was capable of. Until this moment, however, he’d thought Carroll had a limit to how depraved he could be in a single encounter.  
  
Ryan swallows, tasting salt, and blinks a couple of times to clear his vision. The blurry figures of Joe and Mike come back into focus, Joe holding Mike close while the latter sobs and Ryan feels numb. He had had trouble, in the beginning, staying still throughout the video. He couldn't stop pacing and fidgeting but now, as he watched Mike break apart on screen, he felt frozen to the spot. This was…real, so real and devastating that it didn't quite sink in. And yet, guiltily enough, some small part of Ryan couldn't help but feel relieved. Mike was still alive, and if Joe took such a personal interest in his misery it meant Joe intended to let him live. _Mike is alive_ , Ryan repeated to himself, _and I will see him again_. Silent tears still trickled from his eyes but Ryan breathed a fraction easier.  
  
On the video Joe righted his clothes and began working patiently at the twisted knot Mike’s makeshift restraint had become. Once released Mike’s arm fell to rest on the pillow next to his head, his wrist nearly as red and swollen as its partner. Raw wounds and open scrapes marked where parts of the buckle had dug into his skin. Mike took no notice of it though. Ryan watched, with alarm, as Mike continued to weep, his skin becoming blotchy as he began to hyperventilate. He didn't show any signs of calming and he couldn't seem to catch his breath. Due in part, undoubtedly, to the fact that Joe was tracing Mike’s naked spine with his fingers, from the base of his skull to the dip of his back. Mike shuddered with the prolonged contact.  
  
“Shhh, Mikey, why are you crying? You really need to calm down, you’re going to hurt yourself.” Joe says with light chastisement as he runs his hands over Mike's side in what would be a comforting manner in any other circumstance. The sliver of a satisfied smile gives his facade away anyway.  
  
“STOP.” Mike shouts suddenly, his voice hoarse, “stop. touching me. please,” he says, and his voice is strained but clear.  
  
“As you wish, beautiful.” Joe says, lifting his hands sardonically, and his smile is triumphant.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody! Thank you for reading and reviewing, here and on the kink meme :]


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the following prompt: Ryan/Mike (established) Joe/Mike (noncon/dubcon)
> 
> Ryan and Mike are together in a round about weird way, and Joe notices that Mike is just so pretty. And is all "I can hurt Ryan". So Joe rapes or has Mike raped, it's filmed and sent to Ryan. Run with it as far as you can.

 

A sickening ache of realization spreads through Ryan as the video ends. Joe Carroll has once again played him. It shouldn't come as a surprise, everything and everyone is an acceptable means to Carroll’s end, Ryan’s feelings most of all. And it’s not a surprise, not really, but there’s a twist this time that kicks Ryan in the gut. Carroll didn't just use Mike’s well-being against Ryan, like he has before. No, this time, in an inverse manner, he has used Ryan’s well-being against Mike. Mike loves Ryan. It’s a fact that Ryan knows, but has been slow to admit, and Joe exploited that. Joe exploited Mike’s good _pure_ heart, and Ryan considers that to be a new low. Mike is one of the only good things to come out of this whole Carroll mess. Ryan furtively tries to suppress the thought that Mike is just another good thing Ryan has already lost.  
  
Joe Carroll murdered Sarah Fuller to make Ryan a better man. He’s willing to destroy Mike Weston to keep Ryan from becoming a good one. There’s a distinct difference between goodness and greatness, and Joe’s story calls for a flawed hero not a white knight. In Joe’s mind Mike became his property the moment the boy entered Ryan’s life. That if goodness must be destroyed, if innocence must die for his story to play out, then so be it. Ryan’s heroic journey is Joe’s top priority and he sees Ryan’s happiness as nothing more than a necessary sacrifice, a useful building block in Ryan’s character development, nothing more than a literary device. Sometimes Ryan wonders what he did to attract such an intellectual psychopath (sometimes Ryan thinks there can’t be enough time left to atone for all the wrong Joe has committed in his name).  
  
Ryan is on his knees in the bathroom, retching, before he even registers standing up. His head pounds and his throat burns. Behind his eyes he can still see the image of Mike turning his face away, trying to hide his tears from Joe and the camera. Can still see Joe’s look of satisfaction at Mike’s desperation, at his fear. He doesn't think he’ll ever be able to forget it, any of it, but it’s no less than he deserves. He recalls the small broken sound Mike uttered when Joe kissed him and his stomach turns again. _Joe Carroll needs to die_ , Ryan thinks, even knowing that nothing can undo what has already been done. No, he can't undo the damage entirely, but he can make sure it doesn't happen again. But first he needs Mike back. Joe’s death, and other fantasies of revenge, mean very little until if he doesn't have the younger agent back where he can protect him.  
  
His phone rings, breaking the silence and shaking Ryan from his thoughts. It takes Ryan a moment to find it, sorting through scattered books and papers with shaky hands. “Hardy here,” Ryan answers, as if on autopilot.  
  
“Ryan,” Debra says, “we've located Agent Mike Weston,” and Ryan’s heart stops.  
  
“Where--” Ryan says before cutting himself off, feeling winded, “Is he…?” Ryan tries again, finding himself unable to finish the question.  
  
“He’s alive Ryan,” she says, and Ryan can hear the ‘but’ unspoken.  
  
“What is it?” he says, blinking away the black dots at the edge of his vision.  
  
“He’s at George Washington hospital in D.C.,” says Debra, “they contacted us as soon as he was stable.”  
  
And Ryan is already moving, grabbing his coat and his keys before Agent Parker can finish her sentence. “Ryan,” she says, tone guarded, “He wasn't breathing on his own when they brought him in.”  
  
Ryan curses Joe Carroll’s entire existence, then curses every wrong decision he’s ever made (just for good measure), and punches a hole in his living room wall.

 

* * *

 

 

The drive to the hospital is an adrenaline tinged blur, Ryan pulling up to George Washington’s emergency entrance thirty minutes later. He leaves the DVD and pajama pants, bagged as evidence, locked in the glove box of his car when he steps out to meet Special Agent Parker. She grimaces a little upon seeing him and Ryan knows that if she looks a bit haggard from the circumstances he must look like hell.  
  
“How is he?” Ryan asks in way of greeting. Debra shakes her head and motions for him to follow her into the hospital.  
  
“He’s still unconscious. The doctors say he’s critical but stable,” she says as they walk through the automatic doors into the brightly lit emergency entrance.   
  
“What the hell happened?” Ryan asks. Mike was clearly injured on the video even before receiving several more injuries at Joe’s hands, but nothing that should have been life-threatening. As much as it nearly killed Ryan to watch every bruise and cut inflicted on Mike, he'd been more worried about Mike’s mental state than his physical condition in the aftermath of Joe’s assault.  
  
Parker let out a breath and sighed, “Carroll must have drugged him, some kind of custom cocktail, and he had a bad reaction. They pumped his stomach and called in an overdose specialist, but they had difficulty stabilizing him since they didn't know what exactly he’d taken.”  
  
She led him down a side wing, Ryan’s head spinning with the new information. He’d almost lost Mike, almost really _really_ lost him, and his mind didn't want to wrap around that fact. Though the doctors had managed to save him Joe Carroll was once again responsible for Mike being in the hospitable, close to death. This was an even closer call than the knife wound, and that rattled Ryan. He pictured Mike, curled up on Joe Carroll’s bed, sobbing until his face became mottled, except now the image is even more chilling. He wonders if Mike’s body had already been shutting down, if he’d known that what Joe had done to him was killing him, wondered how scared he was.  
  
“Who brought him in?” Ryan asks, partly to distract his mind from the extremely dark path it was headed down and partly because it just occurred to him that if Mike was in such dire shape he must have been brought in by way of someone else.  
  
“Two students from the university,” Parker says, halting outside a hospital room and looking Ryan over as if trying to follow his train of thought, “they found him outside their dorm, beaten and half-dressed, figured he was a student who’d been attacked walking home. Luckily one of them was pre-med, he manually supplied Mike with oxygen until the EMT’s arrived."  
  
Ryan chuckled brokenly at Parker’s use of the word ‘luckily’ and tried to compose himself. Suddenly his eyes were wet again and the hall seemed far too bright. He wondered if his lack of sleep was catching up with him, or if the hospital really was listing.

“Ryan,” Debra says, concern evident in her voice, and Ryan feels a pang of sympathy. She might be holding it together better than Ryan was but the evening had not been easy for her either. She’d known Mike from before Ryan, before Joe Carroll, and he knew that she cared about him in her own way (Mike was hard not to love). Ryan couldn't imagine how she would react when he submitted the video, didn't want to imagine how it would break her heart.  
  
“I--” Ryan starts to reply before Debra interrupts him.  
  
“Ryan Hardy, with all due respect, if that statement intends to be ‘I’m fine’ then I will be kindly remind you that you are swaying where you stand and I will not take consultation from a person who lies to my face.”   
  
“…I need to see Mike,” Ryan finishes honestly instead.  
  
Debra eyes him knowingly, and says, “You haven’t asked for details on Mike’s abduction, just his recovery.”  
  
Ryan freezes at the threshold to Mike’s room, a million different thoughts on Carroll, on Mike and the assault, on how much he should disclose (and when), and says, "Mike is alive. For the moment that's all the detail I need."

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the following prompt: Ryan/Mike (established) Joe/Mike (noncon/dubcon)
> 
> Ryan and Mike are together in a round about weird way, and Joe notices that Mike is just so pretty. And is all "I can hurt Ryan". So Joe rapes or has Mike raped, it's filmed and sent to Ryan. Run with it as far as you can.

 

Mike lies beneath a mess of wires and tubes, his body covered in heated blankets and his face hidden behind an oxygen mask. One bandaged wrist rests on his chest in a soft cast and the other one lies alongside him in a rigid one. Despite the alarming amount of medical intervention Mike’s heartbeat sounds steady, sounds far stronger than Ryan’s feels at the moment. The nurse adjusting Mike’s I.V. bag looks up when Ryan and Parker step into the room.

  
  
“Officers, if you’re here for questioning I’ll have to ask you to wait for the doctor in the reception area,” the nurse says and smiles apologetically, “the critical care ward is only open to religious counsel and next-of-kin at the hour,” she speaks softly, as if Mike could awaken at any moment, and that makes Ryan feel a bit hopeful.

  
  
“Oh, we’re not here for case details,” Parker says in that pacifying way of hers, “I was just showing Mr. Hardy here to the room,” she says nodding towards Ryan, “he’s family.”

  
  
The nurse studies Ryan for a moment, perhaps recognizing him from the news, before saying, “Oh, right, of course,” and stepping towards the agents. Her smile seems sadder now. Ryan thinks that it must be difficult to stay personable when you know that the patient in your care means something, the world, to the people in front of you. He knows how hard it can be to seem pleasant when you care too much.

  
  
“Has the doctor spoken with you yet?” she asks Ryan with genuine concern and it throws him off, being on the receiving end of that look. In this seemingly familiar situation he’s not the person asking the questions, he’s the one getting the bad news. Ryan shakes his head ‘no’.

  
  
“Alright then, the doctor should be in to speak with you soon,” the nurse says, ushering Ryan over to a chair at Mike’s bedside and handing him a sterile face mask, “This is not absolutely mandatory, but please wear it if you feel you might be coming down with something. Patients are more vulnerable to infection after having been intubated and Mr. Weston is not our ward’s only occupant, so exercise caution.”

  
  
Ryan takes the mask, nodding in understanding, and sits down, “We've upped his oxygen intake, so when he comes around he’ll be a little out of it,” the nurse warns, and all Ryan can hear is “when” not “if”.

  
“Thank you,” Ryan says as she takes her leave with Parker. He scoots his chair closer to the bed and takes Mike’s less bandaged hand in his, feeling the warmth coming from Mike’s skin and reminding himself that Weston is alive. It is like, and unlike, Mike’s far too recent stay in the hospital, when Charlie pummeled him to near dead. Looking back it now seems so quaint in comparison. Knife wounds can be stitched and blood can be replaced. Followers can be killed. What Joe has done now is not only unforgivable but irreversible in several ways. Even if ( _when_ , Ryan corrects himself) Mike emotionally recovers from this incident Ryan’s not sure if the physical damage can be undone. He doesn't know how long Mike went without oxygen before he was found, or how long it took to stabilize him once he was in the ER. He does know how little time it takes before brain trauma becomes inevitable, and that is without considering that Joe already strangled Mike to near unconscious once on the video.

 

Ryan, despite himself, has fallen in love with everything (kind, earnest, particular, passionate, analytical) that Mike is. And love, love is dangerous, even in a world without Joe Carroll. Now the darkest part of Ryan’s mind whispers, insidiously, that the Mike that wakes up might not really be _Ryan’s_ Mike and Ryan hates himself for it. Hates himself for fearing that the person staring back at him won’t be his Mike and that he won’t love him the same. Mike deserves to have someone that loves him endlessly, regardless of circumstance, regardless of Joe fucking Carroll. He deserves someone much better than Ryan Hardy. But he chose to love Ryan and that is another thing Ryan fears will change upon Mike waking up. That perhaps Mike will come to his senses and realize that Ryan is an unnecessary danger to him. Ryan masochistically hopes for it at the same time that he dreads it like nothing else. Trauma changes people, brain damage changes people, Joe Carroll changes people. Whoever wakes up will be more than Ryan deserves.

 

* * *

 

 

Mike regains consciousness with a jolt like he’s forgotten something. He breathes in plastic and stale air, the inside of his throat raw and his mouth tasting faintly of blood. He shudders, his body still reeling from things he can’t clearly recall, his memory fogged and his senses muddled in his current state. His heart feels bruised beneath broken ribs, and even the echo of his own pulse on a nearby heart monitor sounds tired. He’s in a hospital, that much he can grasp, even if he can’t quite open his eyes or remember his name. He has not a single thought in his head, just the distant inkling that he fucked up somehow. His consciousness is a low hum, like a radio in another room, and it doesn't offer up anything coherent. Vague ideas like ‘ _panic_ ’ and ‘ _suffocation_ ’ and ‘ _Ryan_ ’. He was supposed to tell Ryan something, wasn't he? Or was it that he _wasn't_ supposed to tell Joe something? He can’t remember and why won’t his eyes open?

The scratchiness of hospital bed-sheets beneath his fingertips is a familiar sensation. The whole scenario is akin to waking up after being stabbed except then, while the blood loss had left him woozy, he had only felt like the dead, whereas this time he’s pretty sure he actually died, if only temporarily. It’s the only thing that explains the immense pain in his neck (and entire body) and the utter blankness of his mind. He remembers standing in the hallway of his hotel, staring at the security camera on the corner and knowing that something was very wrong (he was being watched? he was in danger? he was…). He remembers a figure, tall and imposing (and his brain supplies the name ‘ _Roderick_ ’ but does he really remember him, or is his brain just filling in the gaps with a likely candidate?) grabbing him by the shoulder and wrenching his wrist at an impossible angle. A shudder runs through him at the memory and his wrist twinges in response. He remembers Joe Carroll speaking softly to him as if he were a child, remembers the muffled laughter of a follower in the background (he doesn't want to remember anymore). 

He cracks one eyes open. Everything is sore and slow and not working right but when he turns his head he thinks he made the right decision in not being dead. Ryan is sleeping with his head pillowed in his arms on the edge of Mike’s bed. His hand is still covering Mike’s bandaged one. He looks ragged and Mike wonders how long he was out for. Wonders how long it’s been since he saw Ryan last. His brain feels like it’s stuffed with cotton and ever though there are memories, and thoughts, putting them in order or making any kind of coherent sense out of them doesn't seem possible. Now that he’s fairly conscious he becomes aware that he has a dreadful headache. He wants to press his hands to his face on instinct to quell the pain, but he resists out of necessity. He can barely move the fingers of his broken wrist and his other hand seems to be occupied by Ryan Hardy, whom he does not want to disturb. It’s futile, Ryan’s fingers tighten the same moment Mike’s eyes open, responding to his partner stirring.

Mike’s appeal of “Ryan…” is inaudible even to his own ears, lost in the whisper of surrounding machines and muffled by his oxygen mask. Ryan presses his lips to the back of Mike’s less injured hand and Mike’s breath stutters. He thinks, _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_. Thinks, _I've failed_ , even though he can’t remember how or when. He can’t remember what he failed to do, but Ryan’s eyes are kind as he brushes the tears away from Mike's face, and he feels like he might break if Ryan lets go. But Ryan doesn't let go and Mike plays at being whole.

 


End file.
